


black coffee blasphemy

by m_iri



Category: New Albion - Shapera, The Dolls of New Albion: A Steampunk Opera - Shapera
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, coffee shop AU, it's not a real fandom until you have a coffee shop au tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5204423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_iri/pseuds/m_iri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The coffee shop is her parents’, but the doll, the glory, the boy – all these are hers. Annabel wipes her hands free of ground coffee and surveys her work. He creaks; his clockwork rattles. She can hardly catch her breath. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	black coffee blasphemy

The coffee shop is her parents’, but the doll, creaking and whistling behind the bar, is hers.

She built it herself from scraps and trash, soldering steel and setting cogs in place within its silver ribs. Typewriter keys became its teeth; old textbooks from catering school, brushed clean of the dust gathering since her expulsion, became its feet. It was beautiful. A perfect shell, built for him.

When the night at last comes to raise her dearly departed from the dead, Annabel hardly has the breath to speak, though she chatters on despite this, talking to herself, to no one, to the room, to _him_ , to gods. He had been gone so long. They’d known each other at school, a lifetime ago, before the board ruled that digging up the urns of coffee beans buried with each corpse was an offense worthy of expulsion and she had been sent away. One kiss – they’d shared nothing else. A kiss, and a night.

Now they can have so much _more_.

Adjusting the whisk that serves as his fifth hand, Annabel draws a breath. She opens her recipe book. She lets the breath slip out between coffee-stained teeth.

She is ready.

 

She does things that night with steaming milk and simple syrups a saner barista would not have dared imagine. She commits cinnamon sins and black coffee blasphemy, glorious in its perversity. Annabel McAlistair, master of death, of life, of lattes, almost flies about her experimental kitchen, fiddling with the dials and the dishes that would bring _him_ back again.

Hours pass in a frenzy. She does not count the minutes. Nor can she be bothered to track the seconds as they pass, save to lift this pan from the boiler and that bowl from the stove with perfect timing, conscious that one mistake might ruin everything. All the while the doll sits in the corner, lidless eyes rolled up towards the heavens, as though in prayer.

“I’ll do it,” she whispers to it, certain it is she its prayers invoke. “Don’t fret. I will succeed.”

The doll stares, lifeless, and the hours pass.

 

Then it is done. A clock tower, somewhere in the city’s choking fog, strikes 3 AM. Annabel lifts the doll and carries him up, up the stairs, up to the café above, and positions him lovingly behind the bar.

The coffee shop is her parents’, but the doll, the glory, the boy – all these are hers. Annabel wipes her hands free of ground coffee and surveys her work. He creaks; his clockwork rattles. She can hardly catch her breath.

Reaching over, she pins a nametag on him with care. _Hello!_ it says, in her best handwriting. _My name is Jasper! How can I help?_ With a flick of her wrists, Annabel shakes out an apron, loops it about the doll’s creaking neck, and slips behind him to tie the strings, drawing them tight, knotting them, drawing them tight, knotting them again. “There,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady and failing, “perfect. Perfect. Isn’t it?”

Beneath her fingers, his scrap-steel spine creaks. His lidless eyes roll up towards the heaven, lidless, staring, as if in prayer. A song emerges from the crackling, aging radio thrust deep into his throat, a reedy elegy she can hardly hear, and with effort, he raises a rusting hand to push her away.

Annabel takes the hand. Tears prick at her eyes.

Jasper’s clockwork heart shudders. It creaks. Falters. Terror tears through Annabel’s face and she dashes off, returning a minute later with oil and pliers. “It’s quite alright.” Her voice trembles; her hands stay steady. “I’ll fix it.” Slipping her fingers between his copper ribs, she grasps his heart, reaching in to oil its rods and cogs. “I’ll keep you alive. Whatever the cost.”

The billows-lungs rattle, but he does not move, cemented by his textbook feet and her hand about his heart.


End file.
